Testimony Time

Well it's testimony time.

So Jake graduates in December and gets his Pediatric Nurse Practitioner certification.  He immediately hears about a job in Norman that may be coming open.  It's in a pediatrician's office in Norman.  This is what Jake would describe as his ideal job.  So we ask some friends to pray that he would get this opportunity and we begin to walk with expectant hearts and believe that the Lord has a perfect job for Jake.  We know from experience that our idea of what is perfect is not necessarily what God's idea of perfect is...so we are open and basically say Ok, whatever you have for us is what we want.  So fast forward five months.  He never heard from the Norman office and still doesn't have a job.  At this point, there are no openings, no return phone calls, no interviews, nada.  We have long forgotten about the job in Norman and at this point, he is willing to look anywhere.  It's May and to be honest we thought he would be in a job by now.

So what happens?  He gets an interview in Tulsa.  So we are thankful.  We say maybe He has something for us that we can't see.  Maybe His idea of a perfect job looks different.  Maybe commuting 4 hours a day won't be so bad.  At least he'll be doing what he loves and has dreamed of doing for so many years.  At this point, Jake is doing a much better job of being thankful and hopeful than I am.  I am saying the right words, but in my heart, I'm thinking about how much harder working in Tulsa will be than Jake realizes.  But if this is what He has for us, let's do it!  He knows better than we do, right?

But then something amazing happens.  He gets a call for a job in Oklahoma City!  This time it's not in a general clinic, it's in a more specific area of medicine.  So again, not ideal, but MUCH better than a commute to Tulsa everyday.  So we are thankful!  We get super excited.  We share with our friends about this opportunity and how hopeful we are that he will have a job and won't have to commute to Tulsa.  One of our friends, in her excitement for the new opportunity, shares that before she heard about the Oklahoma City job, she felt like the Lord told her that the job in Tulsa was just the beginning of doors opening...wow!  I'll take that.  So at this point, he has a second interview in Tulsa and an interview in Oklahoma City for the following week.  Nothing for five months and within a week he has two interviews...so this is the point in the story where I wrote my post about having a thankful heart...how in the midst of the journey, when I can't see the end, I will be thankful...because I know His plans are good and perfect even when I can't see the end.  I didn't know what would happen, would he get a job offer from Tulsa?  from OKC?  Would he like commuting?  Would he like the job that was more specific than what he wanted?  It didn't matter.  We were thankful because we knew God knew what He was doing...we have a history of His faithfulness to us that we can cling to when things seem scary (although sometimes we are quick to forget His history of faithfulness- I know I had to remind myself of our history a lot during this process)....we did our best to stand in faith and trust the one who is always good and always faithful.  So how does the story end?  When the Lord shows us the end of the journey, pulls back the curtain, and reveals His plan, what happens?

The Final Chapter- So last week, while Jake is waiting for his two interviews to happen, he gets a call from the pediatrician's office in Norman...the one that he heard about five months ago, the ideal job, the perfect job, his dream job....could this be possible?  Could the job that Jake has always dreamed of having be his?  With the perfect hours and the perfect clinical setting in the perfect location?  He hadn't heard from them since January, could it even be possible that it is still available?  So he goes to the interview....and he gets the job!!  Wow.  We are in awe of how the Lord works.  How he has a perfect plan for us.  Yes he could have gotten that job five months ago...but would we have gotten the opportunity to trust Him, to wait on Him, to seek His will as we walk through each door he opened for us?  Nope.  Would we have joyfully and enthusiastically told everyone we talked to about His goodness in providing the perfect job to Jake?  Probably not.

Boy am I glad I have a GOOD SHEPHERD that I get to follow down His path...if I were walking down my own path it wouldn't be quite as adventurous or quite as grand or quite as, well, perfect.